• Tweet
• Sharebar

• Tweet

January 25, 2012 – Australia will no longer be accepting passively the arrival of asylum-seeker boats for migration to Australia from Indonesia if Tony Abbott has his way.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives and federal leader of the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia, Tony Abbott, revealed that if elected Prime Minister, he will tell Jakarta that the Australian government will no longer passively accept the arrival of asylum-seeker boats on immigration to Australia from the country of Indonesia.

The federal opposition leader boasted that he is determined to impose a new and much tougher Australian migration policy whereby Australia uses its navy to secure its borders.

According to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, if the Coalition was in government, it will make an order to the Australian navy to turn around asylum-seeker boats and return them to Indonesia in an assertion of Australian border protection. The federal opposition wants the Australian navy to turn boatloads of asylum seekers around at sea, despite claims it would be dangerous and illegal.

A radical policy departure, the said plan entails far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for Australia-Indonesia relations.

Mr. Abbott stated during recent talks with his colleagues that now is the time for Australia to adopt turning the boats as its core policy.

This would involve increasing the number of naval vessels that are tasked to force the boats back, including the capacity to remove asylum-seekers from deliberately sabotaged boats before repairing those vessels to enable the boatpeople to be returned to Indonesia.

Moreover, the political deal to revive Labour’s Malaysia Solution was also ruled out by the Coalition and instead is planning a tougher regimen of temporary protection Australia immigration visas, which would include imposing a quota on the number of permanent Australia migration visas issued to temporary protection Australian visa holders to favor authorized asylum-seekers and to provide a disincentive to people making the journey by boat.

Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison stated that the long-standing coalition policy of turning boats around, along with the temporary protection Australian visas and offshore processing of asylum seekers are absolutely and “uncompromisingly necessary”.

Mr. Morrison added that no one should be left in any doubt, particularly the smugglers, that the coalition government is serious in implementing the policy of turning every boat back that comes to Australia not only in Australian waters, but also in Australia’s contiguous zone and if necessary on the high seas.

Furthermore, Mr. Morrison also flagged giving the navy extra resources to do the job, though he declined to detail exact figures.

source:
theaustralian.com.au